B-Movie Breakdown: ABCs of Death 2

Hello, dear readers, this week I am bringing you something I am truly excited to share. If you read my breakdown of the first, ABCs of Death, then you know that this anthology series is off the wall crazy, but so much fun! Between badgers, zombies, drug addled men on rampages, and a closing story that will have your skin crawling in more than one way. ABCs of Death 2 not only builds on the awesome foundation of its prequel, but brings new life to the horror anthology genre.

The Breakdown

Plot:

In case of you dear readers didn’t get a chance to check out the first one yet (please do, it’s wonderful), here’s a basic description of what this movie is. 26 different directors were all given a letter from the alphabet. From that letter they had to come up with a word and from that word, they had to form a scene in which the theme is tied back to death in some way or another. Since there’s over 26 different scenes, I’m obviously not going to be able to break down each one, so I’ve decided to just share a couple of my favorites to give you a taste of what this movie has to offer. For example, K is for Knell, is a quiet, disturbing piece that leaves you with a cold feeling in your gut. It starts with a young woman painting her toenails, alone in her apartment, when a strange sound rings through the scene. She walks to her balcony where she witnesses a strange, black liquid forming a ball in the sky next to a building. After the liquid disappears, everyone in the building begins to kill each other. Soon the liquid begins to invade her apartment and, presumably, causes her death. Not a single word is said, but the visuals in this one are so powerful and disturbing it leaves a mark in your mind.

Another great one is, O is for Ochlocracy (mob rule), where a woman is being placed on trial for the murder of several people who were, at the time, affected by “apparent death syndrome.” In other words, they were zombies before a cure was found and now those zombies have come back to execute her. Having been ruled guilty and put to death for her “crimes,” she curses them all and ends up coming back as a zombie herself. Coincidence really isn’t a strong enough word for this.

The final scene I’ll tell you about is the final one of the movie and, to me anyways, one of the most disturbing. Z is for Zygote, is truly something that will make your insides curdle and not just because the concept is unsettling, but the visuals are some of the most visceral in the movie. We start off with a pregnant woman whose husband is leaving her to, apparently, fetch a midwife to help deliver their child. The woman is very distressed that he is leaving her alone and the husband simply tells her to chew on some root to delay the baby’s delivery until he returns, which should be within the next couple of days. He leaves and we cut to thirteen years in the future. The woman is dragging herself along the ground, calling out for her missing husband, and still very, very pregnant. What’s more disturbing? The child inside her can talk and has conversations with her while she attempts to prepare dinner and go about what daily things she can while carrying around a 13 year-old child inside of her.

Eventually, the child wants to come out and the woman has run out of birth delaying root. In an apparent act of kindness, the child finds a way that the two can stay together forever. You know, by snapping the mother’s spine, breaking and expelling all of her organs and bones, and wearing her skin like a suit. No big deal, right? After the child has taken that whole Buffalo Bill style to a new level, they (we don’t know the gender as it’s never specified) clean up the house and are soon greeted by their long lost father. However, instead of confessing what had happened, it simply says that it had to cut the baby out. Also, it seemed strange to me that after 13 years the husband just walks in like he was out to the bar for an afternoon. The husband then says they’ll have to, “try again,” and unzips their dress, ending the scene.

Yeah, sure, throw some incest in there for good measure. Outside of that rather distressing ending, there are some really great pieces in this movie and they seem to have chosen their directors a bit more carefully in this run, leaving more quality productions for this movie.

Acting:

This is a difficult thing to really breakdown since it varied from scene to scene. I can say that there was a decent consistency of quality throughout the movie. Nothing really sticks out as being terrible or inappropriate for the specific situation.

Visuals:

Most of the visuals were great. As I mentioned before, in K is for Knell, the black liquid is truly ominous and the visual of watching a building full of people murder each other is truly haunting. Aside from live action scenes, there is also an illustrated piece and claymation piece. As you can imagine, the ladder is creepy as all get out and weird with its strange movements and bizarre creatures. However, besides those two everything else is live action, which was a little sad for me since I like to see what people can do in other mediums, especially in the horror genre. I feel like it’s something that could be expanded upon, but for now the two pieces that are in this movie look great and add wonderful dimension to the overall aesthetic.

What Say I:

ABCs of Death 2, is a wonderful anthology of horror scenes that not only shows the potential for future anthologies, but also the horror genre as a whole. It brings to light how creative upcoming and current directors can be if given the chance, and considering how bland and unpopular horror movies have been lately, it was something that was desperately needed. I highly recommend this and the first one, as a must, must, MUST see. It’s fun, creepy, weird, and downright demented in all of the right ways with something for everyone.